Wonderful. I love this festival, and it just keeps getting better. 2013 will witness Off The Tracks twenty fifth anniversary and, as a warm up to next year’s celebrations, this year was a bloody cracker!

Off The Tracks (OTT) is much more than just another festival – for starters the organisers offer you TWO events every year and both the Spring and Summer festivals each have their own unique design and vibe. The location helps of course. Both are based on a permanent year round camp site with excellent facilities and centre around converted farm buildings featuring a real, genuine pub and diner! The music is held in the farmyard and numerous barns and outbuildings. The summer event is totally under covered stages; ironically on one of Donington’s hottest weekends… indeed both 2012 events have been blessed with excellent weather in what has been a terrible year on so many levels for the festival scene.  

Think of OTT as more a house party than a ‘festival’; it’s got that vibe. As a relatively seasoned reviewer this truly is arguably the friendliest, most diverse, knowledgeable, and chilled crowd I’ve ever had the pleasure to share a weekend with. Even better – there is not an ‘OTT’ stereotype; I give you teens & seniors, old hippies & young punks, disco kids & old skool ravers, travellers vans & chelsea tractors. This festival has more ‘characters’ per square inch than any other event I can recall. ‘Rum Sticks’ as my old gran used to say. They come in their droves year upon year to share a magical collective experience. It really is that good. Can festivals change your life… ? Hmmmm steady on; but even this old cynic willingly admits that OTT is genuinely life affirming. Put excellent people in excellent surroundings, with excellent happenings and yep, something special does begin to take shape. The organisers manage to put the outside world on hold, for just a few short days, and provide you with a brief glimpse of a better place. They work at this, and have done for the twenty four years of OTT’s existence – it doesn’t just happen. At the end of the festival, one of the organisers spoke of interaction and triggering change at an atomic level upwards; the festival’s strap line is “Most of us will never do great things, but we can do small things in a great way”. We get it – we thank you.

Even if you don’t buy into OTT as Derbyshire’s Brigadoon (and one day you will my friends, you will), you can still unravel the various elements to OTT and discover it really is all rather good. They keep it low key – but there is a cracking real ale festie amongst much else going down here. Eighty plus beers and ciders in one of the barns and priced from a measly £2.70! Beer in the pub at ‘pub prices’ because, doh, it’s a pub. Home farm reared venison in the diner; the biggest, tastiest Hog Roast on the planet (probably) at only £3.50. Performance poets, theatre, Hare Krishnas, diverse intelligent-silly music, miscellaneous antics, general merriment. You getting it yet?

In 2012, OTT shook it up again by utilising more of the outbuildings to provide greater concurrent stage choice and even wider musical offerings. It’s a throwaway line but OTT regulars know that the artists are secondary to the bigger OTT experience. There is a trust, based on twenty odd years’ experience, that OTT will deliver top calibre music and arts, irrespective of where on the bill the artist performs and how ‘famous’ they happen to be …. So it proved, once again, at OTT Summer 2012. Here is just a small flavour of some of the many highlights:

Before we even entered the arena proper, we were regaled with some excellent performance poetry from Jim Higo, hotfoot from the Edinburgh Fringe. Hard hitting social commentary, not vindictive or sullen, but thoughtful, funny, and razor sharp. Proud to wear his politics on his sleeve. I salute you. Great guy.

Friday saw The Beat yet again illustrate why they are in that top echelon of festival acts. Some acts are virtually guaranteed to deliver a brilliant festival stage set and The Beat have a place on the top table. Illustrating just what strength in depth of material and talent these guys possess, this particular set had stronger rock beat overtones (and on a couple of numbers, an almost spacey feel), than when we saw them last. Ska fused reggae at its best. Great show. Another mainstay who never disappoints is Banco de Gaia; his set in the Threshing Barn was absolutely top. The icing on the cake was reserved for Mojosa, consisting of OTT mainstay Paul Miro & cohort Paul Evans who played some of the sweetest blues I’ve ever heard. Miro claimed later that this set was largely unrehearsed and off the cuff…. If so then it was doubly stunning. Two awesome talents.

Saturday was packed with excellent sets. Special mention to Hallouminati and a nice example of the sheer quality that OTT organisers consistently bring to the party. New to me, they mix eastern Mediterranean beats with, for instance, Slavonic dance to produce a rich, colourful and hugely entertaining show. Do try and check them out. Quintessentially English vaudeville escapades from Biggles Wartime Band tickled our fancy before further good times with Edward II who had the crowd bouncing with their infectious fusion of traditional folk and reggae. There is a lot going on musically here and these old festie stagers delivered it with maximum effect.

Big stage clash dilemma city…. We were torn between the excellent Dub Pistols, frogmarched back by public demand for a rerun of their blistering set at the Spring event, or the mellow psychedelic prog-rock of The Dream Circuit over in the Black Barn. We left Ashworth and his merry band ripping up the main stage for a superb musical journey with Dream Circuit. Very, very good. They overcame some technical issues to enthral the swaying crowd. A masterstroke of programming by the organisers. I did mention OTT providing something for everyone earlier did I not? Hilarious twin channel silent disco frolics from the decks of Dr Matt and Soesmix Selecta coupled with the marvellous uke fuelled mayhem of The Re-Entrants in the intimate Midnight Sessions over in the Oak Room finally did for us. I remember nothing more.

Lazy Hazy Sunday witnessed arguably the two sets of the festival for this reviewer. Phantom Limb were absolutely splendid. Soul fuelled R&B overlayed with country rock were all in the heady mix. These guys were magnificent. Rory McLeod gathered some excellent musicians together as The Familiar Strangers, and he simply set the festival alight. A mix of powerful lyrics, good time music, and entertaining stage banter…. What a way to close the whole shebang.

Off The Tracks…. Everything a festival weekend should be. Not a life changer – but it comes mighty close. We were privileged to attend.

Article by Barrie Dimond